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In my presentation yesterday, I covered how the structuring of an e-business needs to differ from that of a traditional brick and mortar business in today’s economy. In this post, I would like to touch upon in a little more detail the fierce business environment and the problems it presents e-businesses (specifically retail businesses). First of all, the internet removes the constraints placed on traditional businesses that need to build a distribution network with a physical presence in several places in order to remain competitive. This means that start up operations can easily enter the marketplace without having to build the infrastructure that burdens traditional businesses. Additionally, this lack of a physical presence means that their is less marketing occurring, requiring an e-business to promote its business even more than a traditional business might have to due to its physical presence and availability to the public eye.
Additionally, the greatness of the internet is that your product can be made available to virtually anyone through a web site. At the same time however, this is a problem for e-businesses when potential competitors can view your website and learn greatly about your operations. While accessibility is great, it is difficult to make your business publicly accessible and remove this threat. Furthermore, the continuous accessibility of the web requires 24 hour service to maintain the web structure of your e-business. If this is not possible, an event that incapacitates your site leads to the customer simply finding another e-business, and considering the fact that these are much easier to establish than traditional businesses, there are often several other options that are available to the customer.
After reading Carolyn’s post and the article entitled “Ten Principles for Knowledge Management Success,” it was exciting to see how many of the principles I plan on covering my literature report regarding E-business and KM related directly to the principles in this article. This leads me to believe that the KM community may not have branched off and adapted for the e-business of the future, but that the whole direction of KM management is changing.
One of the largest areas where this new direction of KM can be seen is in Principle 5 of the article, where the author proposes it is necessary to stay strategic in an ever changing business world. KM cannot be determined a project because it has no definite ending, rather, you initiate KM, build it, and maintain it, adapting constantly to stay up to date. Furthermore, constant monitoring of a KM database is required to prevent the containment of stale knowledge that no longer applies. While this could be a benefit, providing employees with a description of past successes and failures, at the same time too much reliance could be placed on older knowledge rather on the development of new knowledge. Because of this, extreme caution should be taken in the implementation and monitoring of knowledge databases.
While searching the internet for something new to add to this blog, I came across another blog site that contained numerous other blog threads pertaining to knowledge management in www.knowledgeboard.com. A post that caught my attention immediately, entitled “Is KM going down?” began a thread of posts with the suggestion that what we have learned in class is a growing trend could actually be a declining fad. Although this is based off some rather bold assumptions (check out the article to find them out) it lead to a rather detailed explanation by several other bloggers clarifying that while it may appear that KM is on the decline, it is simply diversifying and expanding into new areas. If you are looking at more information concerning the evolution of knowledge management, or would simply like to laugh at one guy’s idea getting shot down by a series of bloggers, take a look at:
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/discuss.cgi?thread_id=25
The following articles compose the research for my literature presentation on knowledge management and its influence on E-Business. I believe that this is a very important subject of knowledge management due to its increasing make-up of the overall business being done in the world today. As more and more business begins to take place over the Internet, we will need new forms of knowledge management that aren’t just extensions of current knowledge management models, but rather models that apply specifically to knowledge being used in the Internet world.
My primary article is:
Malhotra, Y. (2000). Knowledge Management for E-Business Performance: Advancing Information Strategy to “Internet Time”. Information Strategy, The Executive’s Journal, 16 (4), 5-16.
While a lot of knowledge management focuses on the management of knowledge within corporations, little emphasis seems to be placed on the e-business and its management of knowledge. This article considers the main assumptions of any information management strategy and refreshes them for modern business in an Internet embracing world. I felt this would be an interesting topic to choose considering e-business is an enormous part of business being done today and knowledge management is just as important for this sector of business as well.
My secondary article is:
Fahey, L., Srivastava, R., Sharon, J.S., Smith, D.E. (2001). Linking E-Business and Operating Processes: The Role of Knowledge Management. IBM Systems Journal, 40 (4), 889-907.
E-business has made great strides in creating new methods in which business is accomplished, but has not yet completely incorporated into the knowledge management landscape. This article focuses on how e-business knowledge management contributes to customer relationship management, supply chain management, and product development management.
The most important difference I see between traditional knowledge management and the kind associated with e-businesses is the human relationship factor. While even though sometimes limited in a traditional business setting, in-person human interaction is the decisive difference between traditional business models and their e-business counterparts. Because of this knowledge management systems must be designed to take this factor into account. Additionally, on-line accessibility plays an even larger role when dealing with e-businesses due to the fact that there is no physical place to turn to for help when on-line communication fails. Overall, these and several other factors constitute specific elements of the knowledge management design that need restructuring when considering an e-business.
This past weekend, I had the privalege to attend a fraternity divisional conference in Oklahoma City. Over the course of the 4 day event, we participated in numerous facilitated discussions. Having read the Secrets to Facilitated Discussion, it became obvious to me which present were more up to date in their performance compared to others who were more adapted to simply standing and lecturing. This being my first experience actually participating in a professional facilitated discussion, I would like to share with everyone some of the aspects that stood out the most to me in hopes that this could be incorporated into everyone’s discussions for the better.
First of all, I realized the importance of having a scribe who is dedicated to writing down what the consensus is. Several times, a participant would share an opinion only to have it written up on the board in a manner that did not give it the complete representation that it deserved. This not only mislead the other members of the discussion but would give the group a false sense of what was actually discussed when looking back at the notes taken during the meeting. When a facilitator actually did clarify with the responder as to what was actually meant by a comment, everything appeared to move more smoothly and everyone understood the point that was being made.
Another point that stood out to me was the introduction and agenda portion of a presentation. While several instructors actually began their meetings with an agenda, the length of this portion of the presentation often extended beyond what was necessary, often times cutting in to the actual important portion of the meeting. It appeared to me that while it is great to begin with an agenda, to ramble on with what is going to be discussed simply unmotivates participants which is exactly opposite of what you are trying to achieve.
Finally, what stood out to me most importantly is the length that is devoted to the actual facilitated discussion session. It appeared to me that length is everything when it comes to accomplishing or not accomplishing the goals established for the session. While it might seem beneficial to get in and get out quickly, when the entire agenda can’t be covered it leaves the participants feeling like they are missing part of the complete picture. This happened a couple of times throughout the weekend due to our strict schedule, but every time it did I felt like I was not getting the complete presentation. However, at the same time you can’t extend a discussion past its point of relevance. When this occurred the participants became just as unmotivated and were likely to focus on the dragging on of the discussion after its completion rather than what was really learned and discussed.
Overall, it appears to be the little things that can actually turn a discussion from good to bad or from bad to good. By focusing on some of these key aspects, hopefully everyone can lead successful and engaging discussions on their relevant topics.
For the Cisco Corporation, customer service is highly regarded. This is evident in their desire to drastically extend their Service and Support Advocacy group. Additionally, Cisco has established Service and Support Managers (SSMs) to directly link large scale clients to individual employees of the company.
Due to the demand for over 250 new SSMs, Cisco had to come up with a way to effectively train and integrate these new employees into the already existing Cisco service group. With the need to establish a user-friendly community, the goals of this knowledge community were: to minimize time-to-proficiency, maximize performance and sharing of knowledge assets, and foster ongoing communication between the SSMs of the corporation.
With the help of web developers VisionCor, Cisco was able to successfully establish an intranet knowledge community that provided an effective new-hire roadmap, build a consensus on the expectations of the SSM position, and continue the ongoing knowledge cultivation between the new and existing SSMs.
Overall, the results can be best summed up by employee Mike Pusich’s remarks, stating “Everything I need is in one place. I can find what I need when I need it without having to wait on an email reply, walk around looking for someone, or search through gigabytes of information on the intranet. Plus, after working through difficult situations, I can post my lessons learned on the site so my colleagues can learn from my experiences.”
There are more than 400,000 employees all throughout the world working for Siemens today, providing a unique opportunity within the Siemens Corporation for extensive knowledge sharing. Because of this extensive network, initiating and supporting Knowledge Communities are an ideal way to promote the creation and sharing of knowledge across groups and regions within Siemens. The Siemens Knowledge Communities Support is a corporate project to initiate and support Knowledge Communities within Siemens. A Knowledge Community is a “a group of people who, based on a common interest in a specific subject area of relevance to the business and who are individually motivated, exchange and develop knowledge. They also provide mutual support beyond the boundaries of their organizational units” (147). Knowledge Communities are seen as a great way to overcome hierarchal and organizational boundaries, business processes and project-specific boundaries, and temporal, geographical, and cultural boundaries. Furthermore, each Knowledge Community is an interactive process that goes through a certain life cycle divided up into three phases. The start-up phase begins with an initiating process, followed by preconsideration, identification and integration of community members, developing a community concept, and setting up a framework that ensures the workability of the community. The run and improve phase includes making sure that continuous improvement takes place, keeping momentum in order to sustain an active and constantly adapting Community focused on the constantly changing business environment. Finally, the winding-down phase occurs when a Knowledge Community’s goals are no longer applicable, shutting the Community down and transferring knowledge to other Communities or archiving the information for later use. There are three groups of roles in each Knowledge Community. A group in the Community itself composed of members, the organizer, and coordinator of the community activities constitutes one group. Additionally, interface roles link the Community to the formal organization, in this case Siemens, and other Knowledge Communities. Finally, Knowledge Community service groups provide services to Knowledge Communities without being directly involved in the knowledge sharing and creation process of the Community itself. Communication between these groups is essential, with a balance of face-to-face and virtual communication recommended to exploit the advantages that both methods have to offer. Furthermore, a basic framework of success factors is required to avoid knowledge sharing barriers, including: members with strong competency, a “we” attitude among the Community, focused and clearly defined core objectives, a recognized and organized facilitator, active members, support from the management, and clear communication channels.
The development and implementation of KCS began with a mission to support Knowledge Communities throughout their lifecycle, to facilitate the identification of Knowledge Communities, to facilitate the transformation of Siemens into a global network of knowledge and innovation, and to promote cooperation based on trust and communication between Communities. The activities of the KCS team can be grouped into six action fields, including: launching a KCS website to provide “self-help” for the whole KC lifecycle, promote KCs and their support within Siemens, install a KCS Hotline for Community members and facilitators, provide KC coaching jointly between departments in order to establish the same KC foundation, designing and implementing a Community@Siemens directory offering employees quick and user friendly ways of finding a desired Community, and to create detailed activity and role descriptions for Communities to support the various phases of the Knowledge Community lifecycle. Overall, the implementation of the Siemens Knowledge Community has been a great success and appears to be a vital part of the overall Siemens business structure.
After all of the positive aspects we have uncovered both in class and in the readings regarding knowledge management, I feel that there has been a downside that has been glanced over in regards to this sharing of knowledge. While it is great that the employees of a company have the ability to share their knowledge and expertise, in a way I feel that this could breed mediocrity in the workplace.
Since so much emphasis is placed on innovation and continual improvement to stay a jump above the competitors, it appears that knowledge management could in a way deter innovation. My reasoning for this is that if you have a problem and go to someone through a knowledge management system to discover the solution to the problem, you may find the solution to the problem, but that might not always be the best possible solution. In addition, by continually going to the same individuals for solutions, who is the employee within the company who is thinking for himself and coming up with innovative solutions to problems that the company is encountering?
Take for example the cook who always used a recipe that was passed down to him from his predecessor. Day after day the cook would follow the same recipe, making the dish with relative ease and success, but never experimenting on it himself. Then, one day the cook finally decided to go into the kitchen and add some ingredients for himself, coming up with a new and improved version of the dish that still served the same function of the old dish but in a tastier manner. In a way, this is an example of how complete reliance on knowledge management services can deter innovation.
I believe that the use of a knowledge management system is essential to the smooth running of a company, but that its uses might be best if they are limited. If employees are constantly searching for help from veterans and not sitting down on their own trying to find an answer they might be overlooking possibilities that could benefit the company even more than the current solution. Companies just implementing a knowledge management system might not have to deal with this problem as much, as their employees will slowly adapt to using the system, but older companies with employees who have years of knowledge management training might slowly end up phasing out their ability to think for themselves. Overall, knowledge management can be a great tool but one that should not be overused.
So far, I have yet to come up with a solid definition for what knowledge management is, however, I feel like I am getting a better understanding of the topic and some of the facilitation techniques necessary to implement knowledge management. As of right now, my definition of knowledge management would be the way in which an organization is able to manage the knowledge of the employees in a company, securing this knowledge so that all the knowledge accumulated within the organization can be used to deal with issues when they arise and in a satisfactory manner. Although I have never had the opportunity to be part of a knowledge management program in an office setting, I believe that I have encountered a situation in which knowledge management was implemented poorly if at all. Over the summer I work at a sporting goods store, sharpening and repairing ice hockey skates. I have been a part of this company for roughly three years, but throughout that time have never encountered a serious knowledge management program. This of course has led to problems concerning my coworkers who shared my duties of hockey equipment repair. As older employees left the company for various reasons, the new employees coming in were never given the knowledge that the past employees were taking with them out of the company. Obviously, this led to issues concerning their capabilities to perform the necessary duties to complete the job and left other veteran employees spending an unnecessary amount of time teaching younger employees the necessary skills. If only the company had realized the value of the knowledge contained in their departing employees, they may have spent more time on the management of this knowledge so that it could be retained within the company. Because of the time spent on teaching crucial skills, customer service and sales suffered as the new employees were unable to assist the customers completely in certain situations due to their lack of knowledge. In this situation, knowledge management played a crucial role in the lessened success of the company. However, the only problem I see with this situation is that in companies where the majority of the employees are younger aged workers, how do you motivate a constantly changing workforce to share their accumulated knowledge with the incoming replacements, especially when there is little benefit to the departing worker? While knowledge management is certainly a necessity to many businesses and organizations alike, is it possible to retain vital knowledge in companies that encounter a consistent turnover rate? These are questions that I hope we will encounter in class, as they pertain to a large section of the workforce.
